Creation and Governance of EDM mappings, profiles and extensions

Goals of the Task Force

As defined in our Business Plan, Europeana plays a key role in making sure 'the cultural heritage sector remains interoperable and efficient'. The continuous development and maintenance of the Europeana Data Model (EDM) enables data exchange of cultural heritage metadata and guarantees its interoperability. The model has been designed in a decentralised way as EDM “profiles” have been developed without Europeana having to update the core model. While this governance model has enabled the involvement of the whole community in the development of EDM, it also raises new questions.

The community has been involved in the development of EDM over the past years in several different ways, through projects, working groups and task forces. A common agreement was reached that Europeana’s role should be to maintain a core EDM and provide guidance in the creation of new extensions of the model. However, this process should be made clear and transparent to the whole community, so that everyone understands their role in this interoperable, yet diverse ecosystem of cultural heritage data.

The approach taken for developing EDM consists of building the EDM core on top of existing ontologies. This modular approach remains the most appropriate one, although it also makes it more difficult to keep the balance between a generic and manageable core model and more complex extensions of it. New and more complex requirements for better controlled review processes and documentation procedures will need to be addressed by the community.

Expected outcomes and communication results

This Task Force aimed to set new principles for a future EDM mappings, profiles and extensions governance model. The final recommendations of the Task Force might result in a white paper.